Upside-Down Dog Bites Man

Why are so many more people frightened of riding in an aeroplane than driving in their car? The risk of being injured in a car is far greater than being injured in an aeroplane. I can offer this theory: it's because aeroplane crashes are so rare and auto crashes are so commonplace. This may sound a little like strange logic, but it's simple really. Does every car crash get reported on the news? Of course not! There are too many of them. It's the same when a dog bites a man. Some dogs can turn on people – yet most of us take them in their stride. Don't get me wrong – most dogs are great but just a few of them can turn round and bite with little provocation. This doesn't happen very often, but it certainly beats aeroplane crashes in the statistics league.

OK, so unless you catch rabies, dog bites are nowhere near as serious as car crashes. The carnage and misery from auto crashes is so common that it is rarely reported. Yet, a rare aeroplane incident, even a minor one, can reach the headlines.

This is because news is reported by exception. Usually, only out-of-the-ordinary events are reported. In a generally good world (well I think so, anyway) we are fed mainly bad news stories. Understandable, as bad news is the exception. Trouble is, this gives us an upside-down of the world. Some of the greatest killers in our world, such as cigarettes, automobiles, AIDS and cancer continue to cause such mass misery, virtually unnoticed, except by those directly affected.

Just take this litmus test: how many people do you know that have been involved in an aeroplane crash, or even near miss? Now think how many people you know that have been involved in road traffic accidents. Come to think of it, how many people do you know that have won a lottery jackpot? And that's the thing. Your odds of perishing in an aeroplane accident or nearer to the odds of winning a major jackpot.

A similar thing could be said of crime. Murders are high up the news agenda. Why? Because they are the exception and not the rule. I think that most of us should at least appreciate that we don't live in a society where murders are so common that the news media give up reporting them.

One very common problem, and another hidden killer, is food poisoning or food infection. Now, back to the litmus test: how many times have you had an upset tummy, brought about, so you suspect, by eating infected food? Was it reported on the news? No, nor were the other millions of cases around us. This may shock you, but the average annual deaths from aeroplane accidents in the U.S. stands at 234 compared with 5,000 deaths from food poisoning. The chances of us getting ill from some kind of food poisoning is 1 in 10 and this figure may be conservative because food poisoning is often not reported.

But who, or what has causes food poisoning? Well, many things cause food infection, such as poor personal hygiene or mixing cooked and raw meats. And, of course a very common cause can be found flying in the air. But these are not aeroplanes; these are disease carrying house flies – a very common source of food poisoning.

Eliminating this risk requires some simple precautions such as personal hygiene and sealing open food when not in use. Oh, and what could be simpler and more obvious than buying a fly killer machine?

I know that food infections, fly killer machines and the rest will not make front page news, but I would be happy to walk down any street at night or to ride in any aeroplane, than risk being poisoned by fly infected food.

You can buy fly killers here